Running inhibits fat loss - opinions?

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Jul 2013
3:25pm, 7 Jul 2013
673 posts
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Canute
I have now mown the lawn, and assume most others are out enjoying the sunshine or watching Murray and Djokovic. With regard to Clairster’s specific question of whether running actually inhibits weight loss, I think there is little evidence for that. I would only expect the body to go into weight conservation mode if there had already been marked weight loss. My own personal experience is that when I run more than 35 miles/week I gradually but steadily lose weight until I am down to around 60Kg; when I run 20 miles per week or less and do three weight sessions per week I gradually gain weight up to around 63 Kg. I have never counted calories. I eat mainly a mix of low GI carbs and protein including fish, and a modest amount of dairy fats. I do not go hungry but usually avoid feeling over-full.
Jul 2013
4:09pm, 7 Jul 2013
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runnyeyes
Mr Murray is exhausting me.

It might be less calories going out and doing my lawns now.

59kg, but ask me again in a few hours.
Jul 2013
7:45pm, 7 Jul 2013
15,747 posts
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Night-owl
Canute your post reminded me of something Is it possible that its the type of running you do that can inhibit weight loss or not. I remember training for a marathon struggling to lose the pounds (just steady runs as wanted to be able to do the distance) Post marathon trsining for 5kms the weight fell off

Though similar to you running less and the weight piles on as is me currently but if I can get up to 30 mpw the weight starts to fall off difference is about a stone
Jul 2013
9:05pm, 7 Jul 2013
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Canute
NightOwl, That is interesting. There is some similarity in our experiences though there may be other factors to take into account. I lose more weight when I run more, but that tends to be in spring and summer when I am more generally active. On the other hand, the lower volume of running and increased weight training occurs in winter when the lawn doesn’t require mowing. There might also be seasonal variations in appetite. I am sceptical that the running itself actually inhibits weight loss apart for exceptional circumstances. One possible factor to consider with marathon training is that long runs might produce more generalised tiredness and discourage other activities.
Jul 2013
10:14pm, 7 Jul 2013
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Canute
nrcresearchpress.com
Although this study was performed in post menopausal women, it is of interest that increased amount of weekly exercise was associated with increased resting energy expenditure. This applied to both aerobic exercise and combined aerobic + resistance exercise but the association was most pronounced in the aerobic exercise only group.
Jul 2013
12:14am, 8 Jul 2013
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Revbarbarag
Canute said a few posts ago that Resting Metabolism account for a small proportion of the whole... Everything I've read says the opposite! One widely-used means of estimating is the Harris-Benedict equation, and being still a little heavier than is ideal for my above-average height, I come out with a Resting Energy Expenditure in the region of 1450 cals per day - that's what I would use if I lay in a darkened room all day.

This is then multiplied by an activity factor, and the one for basically sedentary people who just potter around the house a bit and don't strain themselves at all is 1.2. Or to put it another way - 5/6 of the energy expenditure of a sedentary person is their resting metabolic rate. You have to be very active indeed before your activity multiplier reached the dizzy heights of 2, which means there are very few people other than professional athletes whose resting expenditure is less than half of their total.

The best way to increase resting metabolism is by adding muscle mass. The best way of reducing it is to significantly reduce calorie intake (aka go on a diet)
Jul 2013
12:29am, 8 Jul 2013
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Velociraptor
Adding muscle mass doesn't make a big impact on RMR. It's often said that a pound of fat burns 2 calories a day and a pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day. The actual figure for a pound of RESTING muscle is not 50 calories, it's more like 6 calories. So you would need to bulk up like a bodybuilder to have enough muscle to burn off the calories in one extra slice of buttered toast a day while sitting on the sofa.
Jul 2013
8:12am, 8 Jul 2013
248 posts
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Moleshome
But when you apportion that RMR across the whole day it accounts for approx 70 calories per hour. My LSR last weekend resulted in me burning approx 550 calories per hour, almost eight times as much. In my 2:50 run I burnt more calories than my RMR.

General low level activity as Canute suggests is not going to burn 500 calories an hour but even if it only burns another 70 then you have doubled your calorie burn for that hour.

Canute's suggestion of getting out in the garden looks particularly good: telegraph.co.uk

Average calories used in an hour
(Figures are kilocalories burned by a 10-stone person)

Watching television 56
Carrying heavy loads 490
Chopping logs quickly 1070
Collecting grass or leaves 252
Digging 322
Mowing lawn with a push-along mower 280
Mowing lawn with a ride-on mower 154
Planting seedlings/shrubs 252
Raking lawn 252
Shovelling 574
Pruning shrubs 280
Weeding 280
Jul 2013
11:23am, 8 Jul 2013
678 posts
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Canute
Barbara, you correctly point out that I was careless in saying that resting metabolism is a small fraction of total, when I meant that the rate of resting metabolism is small compared with that of vigorous activity. However, as Vrap points out, increasing muscle mass probably does not have much effect on resting metabolism. On the other hand, moderate aerobic exercise does increase resting metabolism, and this effect appears more pronounced for aerobic exercise than for (aerobic + resistance exercise). I recently posted a link to a study demonstrating this in post menopausal women. Similar data exists for other groups, though most of the data for other groups is for higher intensity of exercise. Nonetheless, I believe that the post-exercise increases in resting metabolism (whether for aerobic or resistance exercise) are generally over-rated.

I am a strong believer in the value of resistance exercise for other purposes, but do not regard it as effective for weight loss. The crucial thing for weight loss is controlling calorie input. The main point of my posts on this thread is to point out that activities such as gardening should not be under-estimated. In particular if increased training at moderate and high intensity leads to less gardening, walking to shops etc, this should be taken into account when computing how many additional calories are justified by the increased moderate and high intensity training.
Jul 2013
12:24pm, 8 Jul 2013
274 posts
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Revbarbarag
Ah, now we're getting somewhere!! I'm also a great believer in increasing low-level activity throughout the day, and wear a fitbit to encourage me to do just that. Interested by this sentence:

" In particular if increased training at moderate and high intensity leads to less gardening, walking to shops etc, this should be taken into account when computing how many additional calories are justified by the increased moderate and high intensity training."

First part of the sentence - there is evidence that this happens (said she - feet up watching the recorded Wimbledon final, having been for a hard run earlier), which is why I continue to wear my fitbit all the time, despite now running regularly.

Second part of the sentence implies that people *intentionally* eat extra calories in proportion to what they believe they've burned in exercise. Lots of people do this, I know - but I think it's a really bad idea. In fact, I think intentionally controlling calorie intake is a bad idea, full stop.

Here's what I think is a good idea: Pay close attention to the quality of your diet, and to your body's signals of hunger and satiety. Eat mostly wholesome food close to its natural state - plenty of lean protein, veggies, salad and fruit, nuts, seeds, pulses and healthy fats - go easy on processed food, especially high-GI carbs and added sugars. Eat only when hungry, eat to the point of satisfaction rather than feeling stuffed, then stop. Do lots of physical activity, some of it vigorous. Your body will sort out the rest.

Until I found slimpods from ThinkingSlimmer.com, I was not capable of following this advice, because my messed up thinking/emotions around food meant I consumed outrageous quantities of junk food & sweets. For the past eighteen months, however, I have been doing a one-person experiment on this approach. I lost six and a half stone in the first year, and 12lb so far this year. Now that the weight loss has slowed to a crawl, I've decided I need to give a little more attention to the going easy on high-GI carbs and added sugar thing, as I retain a great fondness for cake (chocolate, ice-cream, pudding....) So I'm trying to tone those down a bit and trusting that, in combination with increased running mileage and two good weight-training sessions a week, that will shift a bit more of my longstanding ballast.

But while I agree that the crucial thing for weight loss is controlling calories input, I don't believe that counting calories is a good way to do it. Along with an obsession with weighing (which I have also suffered from) it leads to some really unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaviour.

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Maintained by clairster
I have recently changed my trainin shcedule in order to try and shed some unwanted flab. I do interv...

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